Hunter Appreciation Day
by ThornsHaveRoses
Summary: Different characters who's lives were saved by Sam and Dean Winchester, and how that has affected them. Every life they save is significant, and these pieces are of the impressions they've made in people's lives. Basically a chance to play around with the legend the boys have become. Each chapter is a new character.
1. One: Hunters Eat Free

**A/N: This will a collection of oneshots, all about different people who's lives where touched by our favorite hunters, the Winchesters, and how it has changed their lives. Characters will be a mix of OC and canon in no particular order.**

 **I have some characters planned out I definitely want to add to this, but if you have any suggestions for characters you'd love to see, and let me know and I'll see what I can do. Also, I got a little stuck trying to write the summary and best describe this, so any suggestions feel free to pass along too!**

 **Enjoy, and please review!**

 **Hunter Appreciation Day**

by ThornsHaveRoses

One - Hunters Eat Free

Aimee was twenty-one when she met the monsters.

Her whole life up until that point had been average. She wasn't disappointed by that fact, because she knew that it wouldn't last forever. She might have been treading water the last few years, working an endlessly tedious job so she could finish her last year of college studying something she wasn't even that interested in, but she knew she'd find purchase eventually. Car. House. Significant other. Mortgage. Whatever.

No where had she figured in being taken off the streets, waking up with her arms twisted above her heads, wrists screaming in cold metal, toes barely scraping the concrete beneath them.

At first, she thought what any young, attractive girl would think. It was the number one reason for being taken, after all. At first she screamed and struggled and pleaded, but the chains held fast, and she remained alone.

After a few minute, though, her precarious positioning made it too hard to do even that. That's when her eyes had finely adjusted to the dim interior of the abandoned wherever the hell she was, and her brain started to work past the panic and _see._

The first thing she really noticed was that she wasn't as alone as she thought. Several feet away, there were _bodies._ Bloody and very certainly dead bodies. Girls and guys, clothes soaked with what Aimee just knew was blood, even though she couldn't be sure the color from where she was.

She was going to die. Whatever had taken her was going to _kill_ her, and that sucked.

She might have started panicking again if she had the energy.

Except that never happened.

Oh, the monster came. And her brain tried to rationalize it, but she knew he wasn't human. But then someone else came. Two someone else's, as it were. And they killed that thing, in a spray of blood and gore and _ohthankgodyousavedme._

The shorter one (although neither one was exactly _short_ ) murmured something about "gonna go make sure he was alone" and he kicked the body on his way out.

The really tall one with the long hair gave her a gentle smile and unchained her, catching her when her weak legs refused to hold up her weight.

She sobbed in his arms for a second, but just a second, and then he was helping her outside, to a beautiful, low slung car, and easing open the passenger door so she could sit down, legs hanging out the door. Her shoes were gone, she realized idly. Her necklace and wallet too.

"I'm Sam." Mr. Tall and Handsome murmured, and he took one of her scrapped and messy wrists and started cleaning and wrapping it was an ease that spoke of practice.

"You saved me."

Sam didn't say anything.

"He was a _monster."_

"Yes."

Aimee was smart enough to realise she might be in shock. Things seemed very disconnected, but more clear then when her rescuers had first stormed in. And despite that, she was quite clear on one thing. "You killed it."

Sam paused for only a second, as if weighing his answer. "That's our job. Me and my brother. We hunt things like that."

"Like what?"

"You sure you want to know?"

And the way he asked the question, Aimee realized how severe it was. Once you knew, you knew. This was a no going back senerio. The other side of the curtain, as it were. But she had to know. "Vampires?"

"And more."

"And it's your _job?_ "

A one-shouldered shrug. "Somebody's got to do it." He let go of her hand and rocked back on his heels.

A deeper voice came over to them. "She okay?" It was the other man. His brother. Aimee could see flecks of blood on his face, but she wasn't afraid.

Sam appraised her for a moment before answering with an affirmative.

"Where you from, kid?"

In any other situation, Aimee might have gotten in the guys face for calling her that, but tonight she was just greatful. "Where are we?"

He named a town maybe five, six hours from where theyd taken her. "I... I've got to get home." Her throat clogged with tears. "How am I supposed to get home?"

Sam stood. "Aimee? You said your name was Aimee, right? Don't worry we're going to get you home. Just give us a sec, 'kay?" He and his brother took a few steps away from her, no doubt to have a bit of privacy. However, when they did, fear spiked through her heart. She didn't want to he alone. What if there were more monsters? She slipped a bit closer to them, feeling the proximity calm her nerves. Of course, it also meant that she could still make out their murmured conversation.

"I've got about fifty bucks left from the last turn. What about you?" Sam said.

The other man thumbed through his wallet. "Shit. About enough for a motel room and a hot meal"

"We can sleep in the car for a few nights. 'Til we can get some more" Sam's big shoulders lifted. "Not like we haven't done it before, Dean."

"Bus would probably be..." the brother, Dean, thumbed off a few bills. "Still leaves us enough for gas for Baby and, well... not a hot meal, but probably a couple coffees."

Aimee couldn't believe it. Not only had they saved her life, they were willing to give up the last of their money, to go hungry, just to get her, a complete stranger, home.

And they did. They took her to the bus stop, and purchased her ticket. She hugged them both, and held her tears in until she was on board and they'd rumbled away in that car.

It turns out, thats what heros look like. Ratty jeans and t-shirts under flannel. She recalled Sam's hands, calloused and confident, and Deans face, set and serious and flecked with blood. People with not enough money, not enough recognition. Wielding pistols and saving people chained to ceilings withough batting an eye.

And slowly, Aimee moved on. Years passed, and she did get those things she wanted - a new town and a boyfriend and a job she enjoyed.

She worked in a dinner, now. The kind that got half regulars and half folks just passing through, with good tips and friendly conversations.

But what she'd thought about curtains? It was true. When she watched the news, she would always wonder what was really happening that people never dreamed about. And when people started disappearing in her town, with pictures on the telephone poles and crying parents on the news, she didn't quite believe what the police where saying on TV.

Six people in six days, just gone. And that all too familiar fear she'd worked past was making it harder and harder to act normal sometimes.

Except then it seemed to be over. There was even a survivor, although apparently he clammed right up. Couldn't tell the police a thing.

And that evening, two men came into the dinner and dropped down into Aimee's section. One of the other waitresses came over to her and whispered that they looked like trouble, but when Aimee went over they just looked tired and gruff. A few days worth of beard growth and busted up knuckles and tattered baseball caps. Something about them actually seemed familiar. Something about them seemed safe.

She brought them their orders, and as she passed around later she heard them discussing _vampires_. No big deal, if it had been teenaged girls, or wannabes, or the type. But usually middle aged rednecks did not put much thought into the oh so popular vamps.

Except...

Except they reminded her of two handsome, rugged heros in a shiny black Impala.

She wandered over to their table again.

"Anything else I can get you?"

"Jus' the bill, thanks." One said.

"You fellas visiting the area? You gotta be careful - I don't know if you've heard but we've had some disappearances lately. Cops think it's kidnappers."

The two men exchanged looks. "I thought I heard that was all sorted out now. But a damn shame."

Aimee studied him. Something about his eyes, she decided.

She smiled, then went back to the counter, and when she returned she placed, not the bill, but two warm slices of apple pie on the table. She turned to leave again, only pausing long enough to say "No bill. Hunters eat free. "

 **A/N: I'd love to hear what you guys thinks! There'll be another chapter soon, from someone else's POV.**


	2. Two: Define Normal

**A/N: First off, let me apologize for the lateness of this. I know I said Wednesday, however, I actually have a good reason. I got sick first of the week, which ended up aggravating my asthma, which resulted in the worst asthma attack I've had since I was about 6. Long story short: inhalers, hospital, and I'm on the road to recovery. However, anyone who's ever had trouble breathing knows you can't focus on anything except pulling air into your lungs, let alone writing, which is why this is late.**

 **Second, thank you to everyone who reviewed - especially you guests who I couldn't reply too! I hope you enjoy this chapter too. One of my favorite characters from the early seasons, from one of my favorite episodes from that season.**

 **Hunter Appreciation Day**

by ThornsHaveRoses

Two: Define Normal

Lucas Barr wasn't exactly normal. Which was okay. He'd always known that. It was a combination of things, some small, some big, that were not 'abnormal', until you strung them all together.

Things like dropping out of art school. Thousands of people dropped out of school every year. And quite frankly, it just wasn't for him. But as soon as he did, his university friends all shifted back, like they were afraid his decision would taint their success. Keeping friends was hard, especially when you knew things that they didn't, so he almost didn't mind. When he was a teenager he'd tried to tell his friends, but that went about as well as can be expected. Once people found out, they had no use for him except as someone to snicker about and call crazy in the hallways. But that never changed his story. Lucas _knew._

But he wouldn't petend that didn't make it hard sometimes. To know something as surely as he knew you drove on the right side of the road, and the Sahara was hot, but to have to keep it inside you because the rest of the world couldn't deal with it. Spirits were out there. Ghosts. Monsters. And to be different in a way he couldn't quite define, and definitely couldn't explain to people that made them judge him. Made them look at him different.

He didn't like to swim. Okay, he _never_ swam. Hell, he'd even lost a girlfriend over it. Because in her mind, anyone who wouldn't take spring break and Christmas break and every opportunity to hang out on a beach down south wasn't worth her time.

And that one he'd tried so damn hard to get over. Surely he'd spent hours by now on the edges of pools or lakes just staring. His friends had ribbed him over his courage (or lack thereof), but it wasn't a lack of guts that made him stay on solid ground - it was just knowledge. The undeniable fact that sometimes _there were things in the water._ And sometimes those things could kill you. Even showers still made him uncomfortable.

He didn't like to think too hard about how much he let fear influence his life, but he'd he lying if he said it wasn't there. That sometimes he'd find himself for a few minutes reverting back to the silence he'd counted on like a protective shield as a kid - something else which pissed his roommate off to no end.

And those were just a few things that made Lucas Barr the odd man out. Which, granted, if one knew the circumstances of his childhood, it wasn't a mystery why. His father wasn't there anymore. His grandfather had frigging sacrificed himself when Lucas was a kid. So Lucas really didn't have a father figure to look up to growing up, which by no means made him special. Lots of kids suffered that same situation.

But Lucas had also had an honest-to-God hero come into his life at one point. Two of them, technically, which is not something a lot of people can say. But it was Dean who convinced him, with his confidence and those honest green eyes that it was okay to come out of his shell of silence.

And there were days even now that Lucas wanted to see him, just for a minute. Just to have someone say "you're okay, kid". Someone he could relate too.

Lucas still remembered the picture Dean had drawn him the first time he'd met, and the story that had gone with it. That thing they had in common - family lost to the monsters of the world. Lucas still remembered that connection he'd felt - someone who'd understood that he didn't want to talk, didn't push him to be anything else. He'd only know Dean for a few days, but he was the only person then, or now, who understood him.

Dean was the reason he had bought a leather jacket when he was 15 and wore it every single day since. He was the reason Led Zeppelin CDs were stuffed in the glovebox of his car. The reason he kept drawing - and the reason those drawing abruptly changed from stick figures and square houses to monsters.

So yeah, Lucas was not normal - but Dean was the reason he was okay with that.


End file.
